Van lifer goes missing on cross country trip with fiancee

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1024

I’m a little confused where anyone is even getting a remote amount of evidence the parents did anything criminal here. Based on what the family attorney has released in official statements as well as the scarce statements that family has issued directly, and here is the timeline, this is what we know:

8/27-30 - Gabby murdered

9/1 - Brian returns home, without Gabby. Before their van trip, they lived together on the parents’ property, so it is reasonable to assume his returning without her was at least notable. Recall however that on 8/17, Brian had returned home to Florida and left the “van trip”, then went back to Gabby on 8/23. It’s possible he had already laid the groundwork that they had “broken up”, and that he had to fly back out west to retrieve personal belongings from the van. Either way, we don’t know what Brian said to his family during all of this. To assume any kind of wrongdoing we’d have to assume he told them he murdered her, and to assume they even had reason to suspect that, which on 9/1, they would not have.

9/6 - 9/7 - Laundrie family goes camping together

9/11 - It breaks that Gabby’s parents have reported her missing, and the details of her disappearance start to spread around news outlets. So note that we actually have no idea at all if, before this point, Brian’s parents knew anything was amiss at all.

9/11 - 9/14 - It’s unclear when, but sometime in this span the Laundrie family hires a criminal defense attorney.

9/14 - Police execute a search warrant on the Laundrie property. On this same day, Brian leaves the family home and is never seen again.

9/15 - Brian is named a person of interest

9/17 - The Laundrie family informs authorities of Brian’s disappearance in 9/14.

Some additional details the lawyer gave out in the last day or so is that the Environmental Park was made known to law enforcement back on 9/17 when the family informed them that Brian had gone missing, and informed them of an abandoned family car “at the Carlton Reserve.” But large portions of the park were underwater and closed to the public at the time the report was made.

The day the family chose to go to the Environmental Park was apparently the first day water had receded enough that it was open to the public, since Brian’s disappearance. Which kind of undercuts any claims about it being nefarious that they didn’t mention the park until now–it sounds like they mentioned it right away.

It also sounds like there is some possibility the media has inaccurately covered the situation vis-a-vis the Carlton Reserve and the Environmental Park. Because the car was actually found at this location:

https://goo.gl/maps/g8MoM8Tqi5xzNTeg7

Now look where that is…it’s right where the Environmental Park is. We know that law enforcement knew where the car was recovered, obviously.

So why has everyone been talking about the Carlton Reserve and not the Environmental Park? My guess is there may be some geographic either misnomers or confusions involved. Look at this actual map of the area:

5bW6uSX.png (1093×953) (imgur.com)

I’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to find the “official” boundaries of some of these things, and it hasn’t been successful. According to Google Maps, the Carlton Reserve is in the Southwest of the large “greenspace”, and the Environmental Park is on the Southeast, but it’s also highly suggestive this entire area is part of a larger State Park.

This map at least suggests that the “reserve” boundaries run all the way to where the Environmental Park is:

So I suspect there’s been some element of “laziness”, media sees that if you google the Carlton Reserve, its entrance is in the far southwest, but have never bothered to mention it runs all the way to the Southeast border of the area and mees the Environmental Park.

The Environmental Park appears to be quite small, so it may simply have been that when Brian’s car was recovered at the Environmental Park / Carlton Reserve, and the Park proper was flooded, they start searching in the reserve–which is again, right there, they can’t really search too well in the underwater park. They have done underwater searches but there’s real limitations to how likely you are to find anything in swamp water.

Taken together I see no reason to believe the parents did not accurately inform the police a) where the car was recovered, which was near where Brian’s body was found and b) inform them that the Environmental Park was a popular family destination. The focus on the Carlton Reserve has no nefarious suggestions of misdirection, but rather the reserve runs right up against the park, which is much smaller, so it was a logical decision to start searching the much larger reserve, instead of the then closed and underwater park.

1025

Nice recap, but the above calls to mind the old joke about a guy crawling around outside searching for something under a streetlight. A passerby offers to help, the guy says he lost his keys some ways away from where he is searching.

“Why are you looking here when you lost your keys over there?”

“Lights better over here.”

1026

Less comedically, it is also in line with Bayesian search theory, which accounts for, among other things, the ease of finding something in a given location. Because when it comes down to it, the best place to employ limited resources to look for a thing is the place where you are most likely to find the thing. Which may be distinct from the place where the thing is most likely to actually be.

The looking where the “lights better” joke is funny and all, but only because it usually plays out where the keys were dropped some good distance from the lights, and the search persists in the area of the light an overly long time. Were the keys (or better yet, a coin) dropped on the border of light and shadow, or even just a foot or two inside the area of shadow (and, in the case of a coin, doubly so if on a hard surface where it might roll away from where it first hit the ground), it actually would make sense to search where the light is first. Recognizing that a “search” where the light is might be limited to no more than a glance, while a search in the dark may involve feeling around on one’s hands and knees.

1027

I guess we need Sunny Daze to clarify what “inaction” means. My interpretation was that Sunny Daze feels the parents should be held criminally liable for not actively going to the police with information or for them answering police questions with, “I’m not answering your questions. Talk to my lawyer.” - neither of which is illegal in the United States.

1028

I think it’s a follow up for things the parents may have done that are wrong. For instance, if you see someone lying injured in the street you don’t have to help them, but most people would consider not calling the ambulance wrong.

The parents are being looked at through the opposite of rose-colored glasses. Things they did that are legal still look like suspicious, such as buying a burner phone, not responding to the Petitos, taking their son on a camping trip (to the same area he hid out in) or not telling the police their son had gone missing until three days after that happened. All looks bad.

1029

nvm - I’m behind the times.

1030

Thank you for this post. If I may, one proposed addition to your timeline … but not one that really changes the overall story except that the walls may have started closing in on Brian Laundrie slightly earlier than 9/11:

9/9 or 9/10 (IMHO, more likely the latter) - Gabby’s parents call the Laundrie household presumably to ask about Gabby’s whereabouts. It is said that the Laundries would not answer the calls, but I’m not sure where that’s sourced from – Gabby’s parents themselves, or their attorney? Would like to know more.

Then the rest generally follows as you have laid out. Gabby’s parents would report her missing the very next day (9/11), and the details of her disappearance start to spread around news outlets. So as you note – and I agree – we the public actually have no idea at if, before the 9/9-10 phone calls from Petito’s parents, Brian’s parents had reason to suspect foul play was overwhelmingly likely.

1031

I wonder if, by and by, this particular claim is going to hold up. The language seems loaded. “Burner phone”? So untraceable that it was known almost instantly that Brian’s mother (?) purchased it? Was it, instead, a replacement cell phone for one that was an old one that was on the blink? Or something else? We don’t have enough information.

1032

Are we sure? Did they check the bunker for alligators?

1033

Recall however that on 8/17, Brian had returned home to Florida and left the “van trip”, then went back to Gabby on 8/23. It’s possible he had already laid the groundwork that they had “broken up”,

I agree your account is plausible, though this statement assumes premeditated murder rather than anger in the moment or manslaughter.

1034

It’s also worth noting a lot of the original reporting on the timeline reported on the revelation that the Laundrie family went camping on the 6th and 7th as an “OMG THEY WENT CAMPING WHEN GABBY WAS MISSING?” The context that Gabby had not been reported missing until several days after that was excluded from the initial narrative.

I think it very likely, given the fact the van trip had already hit troubles–remember, Brian flew home, stayed at home for a few days, and flew back OUT, then killed Gabby, then came home again. It is very unlikely he didn’t have to at least offer up some sort of explanation for why he was suddenly back home instead of living his Van Life, and it seems at least decently likely he may have given his parents a “story” as early as then that they were “broken up.” But who knows, we do know after flying back out, he returned with the van. If he had already given his parents a story during his earlier visit preparing them to expect this, it means his murder of Gabby was premeditated. But if it wasn’t premeditated maybe he just told them he was going back out to try to patch things up.

Either way it seems likely the parents had already been conditioned to expect relationship troubles, which means when he shows back up on 9/1 without Gabby, it’s not all that crazy his parents don’t immediately assume “oh wow, he showed back up with the van but not Gabby, he must have murdered her.” If he’d already laid out that they were having problems, it’s a lot more reasonable he would just have been able to explain his re-appearance away fairly easily by saying “yeah, we weren’t able to patch it up, Gabby gave me the van to drive back because she is continuing on with some friends we met out on the trails” or some shit like that.

It seems unlikely to me at the point of 9/1, he had said or done anything that would make a “typical parent” assume their son had murdered his girlfriend, left her body decomposing in the woods, and stolen her van.

It looks like the first media reports that Laundrie and his family “were not assisting with the search” started to hit on 9/13, along with reports that they had hired an attorney. So 9/11 at the latest would’ve been when the parents knew something was not good, it’s possible that they didn’t know earlier in spite of Gabby’s parents calling the night before because it’s possible Brian had either intercepted or told them to screen those calls, saying “they’re just trying to cause drama over the breakup” or who knows. But 9/11 is the hard cutoff where it’s very likely the parents had to have known something was wrong.

What did the parents actually do in that time?

They hired an attorney for their son, and made no statements. On the 14th, Brian leaves and never returns, it’s unclear if he left before or after the search warrant was served on that day.

We also know his parents went to the AT&T store with him and helped him buy a phone. I’m not actually sure it was a “burner phone” and the fact it was at the AT&T store suggests it may have been purchased and added to an existing phone account (I have a strong suspicion little Brian was on his Mommy’s family plan, and did not have his own cell phone plan.) That would be a “new phone” but not a “burner phone” (which is a pre-paid phone purchased without any account and thus not directly identifiable as having a specific named owner.) The cell phone appears to be minimally important–Brian disappeared the day it was purchased, and did not take the new phone with him.

On 9/17 they inform the police Brian is gone.

Now, one could argue that they should have informed the police earlier, but remember at this point there was no warrant out for Brian at all, he was free to come and go as he pleased. The story his parents have told is he told them he was going to the reserve, maybe they assumed he was clearing his head or something, I don’t know. But there are no clear signs of them helping him “flee”, and since he wasn’t even wanted for a crime at that point, legally I don’t even know how you could associate any of this with criminality.

Cassie Laundrie, Brian’s older sister, is the only person to speak extensively to the media from the Laundrie family. She said a few things that are telling, namely that “Gabby is someone who has gone in and out of our lives over the past few years.” That doesn’t sound like a very stable long-term relationship, but more likely a volatile one, which means the parents would not have been crazy shocked by a story Brian had that they had broken up, and thus explaining why Gabby hadn’t come back with him from the van trip.

Also interesting from the Cassie Laundrie interview:

(It isn’t surprising that Cassie would be unaware the van was back–she didn’t live with her parents so may have had no reason to know that–but she comes very close to saying “because that’s what he did when he” – which I take to mean the family already obviously knew Brian had flown back once before, probably with a story of relationship problems.)

1035

You did catch what I said about non-rose colored glasses?

Perhaps it wasn’t a burner phone, but when everyone looks at them with suspicion, it looks like a burner phone. A burner phone is legal in of itself, but under the circumstances it looks suspicious.

1036

Yes, but I read a personal value judgment when you wrote the term “burner phone”. As opposed to writing " … a purported ‘burner’ phone" or similar.

All the same, your point is taken.

1037

Anecdotally, my wife’s uncle was swept away in a flash flood in the Tehachapis several years ago. Cadaver dogs were brought out while the area was still inundated, and only a few days after he was killed. They didn’t find him.

1038

I agree with many of your points. The idea that Brian Laundrie’s parents may have misdirected police to the wrong area of the wildlife reserve – and I was among those who believed this might be the case – may well have been based on lazy and inaccurate media reporting. I also concur that the media is guilty of this sort of thing all the time.

But, again, getting back to what we actually know, we can start by looking at an interview that CNN conducted with Steve Bertolino, the Laundrie family lawyer. The interview goes on for a bit, but I can completely summarize the substantive parts with just two points that he made:

Q: Why did the parents initially refuse to talk to police?
A: Because I told them not to.

Q: Why did you tell them not to talk to police?
A: Because it was their right.

Fine. The logic here is faultless, if somewhat less than informative, and lacking in that Clarence Darrow element of soaring oratory. Or, put another way, it completely fails to answer the question, perhaps because there’s really no good answer that wouldn’t get the lawyer disbarred. I would love to have been able to pose two followup questions:

  1. Why did the parents feel the need to hire a lawyer immediately on Brian’s return? Particularly a self-styled “personal attorney” such as yourself whose professed specialties include criminal defense?

  2. Why are you evading legitimate questions with boilerplate banalities?

I think the bottom line here is that the best that can be said about the parents’ actions is that they’re highly suspicious under highly suspicious circumstances centered around a major crime. The worst that might be said, speculatively, is that they’re guilty of shielding a murderer from justice.

1039

So now that we’re speculating that Brian may have told his family they broke up when he flew home in August, are we thinking:

  • they actually had broken up, but Gabby neglected to inform her parents, whom she talked to frequently,
  • they were not on the same page re whether they were breaking up or taking a break, or
  • they were not broken up at that time, which suggests Brian was perhaps laying the groundwork for a premeditated act?
1040

Did they? When was Bertolino hired? Does the public know?

1041

I’ve not seen any mention in any news article before 9/13 that mentions a family attorney, the 9/13 articles all suggest the family was directing questions to their attorney at least the day prior, so 9/12 is about the earliest we know for sure. This strongly suggests they hired an attorney when they were made aware around 9/11 that Gabby was missing, and people started asking questions about it. Brian returned on 9/1, there isn’t any evidence I have seen that the attorney was hired at that point.

1042

If Brian told his family they had broken up my theory is it was laying the grounds for a premeditated murder. I have 0 evidence this occurred, was just speculating out loud. It’s also possible he just told them they had a fight, the way Cassie Laundrie talked about their relationship it sounded like they had been “off and on” over the past few years. The interviewer actually asked about whether they fought and typical behavior when they fought, and she said they did fight and it was typical they would “just go their separate ways to cool off”, so Brian appearing back home with a story about a fight with Gabby mid-August, would probably be received as a “oh this shit again” by the family, and not out of character.

1043

The exact date isn’t clear, but Brian returned home on Sep 1, and by Sep 15 the North Port police department was appealing to the lawyer as the now-established family spokesman to help put them in contact with Brian.

So (as @Martin_Hyde already noted) it was somewhere in that two-week period. Since it takes time to find and engage a lawyer, unless for some reason they had this guy on speed dial, they likely started the process shortly after Brian’s return. Rather than taking the word “immediately” literally, I think the message here is that once the parents got talking to Brian, the concept of “we need a lawyer ASAP” came up very quickly. And the one they got, perhaps coincidentally, had criminal defense credentials.